Simons: Former foster child pleads with the province to end the stigma and shame that surround privacy laws

Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal01.30.2014

Samantha is a young adult who has been in the care of the province of Alberta at some point in her life. She spoke on the second day of the roundtable discussion about Alberta’s child death review system.

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EDMONTON - On Friday, the Manitoba government will release the report of a major public inquiry into the death of a five-year-old girl horribly abused and finally killed by her mother and stepfather.

The family had a long history of contact with the child welfare system, but girl was not in care when she died.

In fact, child welfare workers didn’t realize she was dead. Her killers buried her body and continued to collect support cheques from the province. It took eight months before a tipster alerted authorities. The parents were tried and convicted of murder.

Now, nine years later, Manitobans will read the final report into her death.

That little girl’s name was Phoenix Sinclair. And it’s probably safe to say that everyone in Manitoba who has picked up a newspaper or turned on a radio or television lately knows it. Phoenix’s image and story have moved a province to pity, fury and remorse.

That’s because in Manitoba it’s not illegal to report the name of a murder victim who was known to the child welfare system. It’s not a crime to show her picture.

That’s not the case here. Since 2004, Alberta has been burdened with one of the most draconian publication bans in North America, a prior restraint that makes it an offence, punishable by up to six months in jail, to print the name or photograph of any child ever “known” to the child welfare system.

That secrecy exists, ostensibly, to protect the dead child’s reputation and that of the child’s family.

In practice, the ban prevents public scrutiny. It protects the system and the government, not the child.

Here in Alberta, we’ve had far too many deaths as disturbing as that of Phoenix Sinclair. But even when they’ve provoked public fatality inquiries or murder trials, we’ve been forbidden to print the names and images of the victims. We can only write of LS or JC or KN or PO.

Their stories have come and gone. They have not haunted us, nor shamed us nor inspired us. We have not honoured their spirits or their suffering. They’ve died twice over — once in real life and once in our collective imagination.

Wednesday, the second day of the province’s round table on child intervention, was spent debating our Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act and the culture of shame that besets our child welfare system.

After hours of passionate debate among experts, there was a general consensus that the current ban is too broad, but none on how to change it.

Some argued the province should simply report all deaths, but without identifying information. Others argued that the ban should be eliminated completely, with the onus on the Crown to demonstrate a public-interest argument for each ban of a name on a case-by-case basis.

But of all the experts who spoke, the most compelling was the true expert: Samantha.

She’s a 21-year-old social work student at MacEwan University. She also grew up in the foster care system, and lived in 21 different places. She’s now the mother of a four-year-old girl, so she views the system as both a former foster child and as a parent.

“I do empathize with how youth in care might be feeling if they’re hearing about this right now, knowing that if anything happens to them, they might lose their identity,” she told the room.

“How do you feel like a human being, how do you feel like a person if you feel like you just can’t exist because there’s some publication ban saying that you don’t exist, your story will not be shared, you will be forgotten? It’s traumatizing.”

Children in care, she argued, are shamed and stigmatized by the secrecy that surrounds them.

She wants them to be treated like everyone else, with the same rights and respect.

From a journalist, a plea to end the unconstitutional, unconscionable publication ban might sound like special pleading. But I hope Samantha’s words will be heard, not just by Human Services Minister Manmeet Bhullar and his bureaucrats, but by the province. It’s time for the conspiracy of silence, which allowed the province to coverup the deaths of 685 children, to end. It’s time to tell Albertans the truth and give the living back their voices.

“Who’s going to speak up for these kids?” Samantha asked. “If we continue not to talk about it, these problems are not going to go away.”

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